A Reign of Ruin

My reign is ruin to any who stand against me or mine.

Darkness falls over Elphame.
Peace has come to an end.

War threatens the realms.
This Crow does not bend.

The fight has started.
New enemies will fall.

Death has come.
The Dark Queen will answer the call.

As the only royal left in the Dark Courts, the last Crow, Perdita Darkmore, reminds her enemies that no one takes from a Soul-Eater and lives to tell the tale. Caught between the safety of her family and the protection of her people, Perdi fights against an invisible enemy as she launches a final rescue of her family.

Pushed to the brink of life or death, Perdi is forced to either become the eater of souls or allow her family to die, all while trying to keep a very real war from erupting, coming from the mortal world and spilling into Elphame, a consequence of opening the Gate and inviting the madness in.

Excerpt:

Time moves differently when you’re wounded. Agony has this way of stilling a clock and allowing you to feel every passing minute. Down to the second, I felt the moments limp by like a hurt animal, scared and alone. While the pain of life crawled by unbearably slow, my days bled away like lightning bolts flashing across the sky. That was the ebb and flow of Elphame. If we weren’t on the verge of destruction, we weren’t living. If we weren’t running from the monsters, we were the monsters. Although I was born for this, to suffer in Elphame, my feathers plucked and my will drained, each day since leaving the mortal realm I was reminded of how close to my grave I’d gotten. But after being cast off the island, leaving my family behind, I looked into that hole in the ground and felt no fear. I was too angry to be scared. It’s hard to dread the only thing in this realm that stops the suffering.

Putting one foot in front of the other wasn’t as easy as others made it seem. But whether it was easy or not, I pushed forward, each step more deliberate than the last. The very lives of my family depended on my drive and ruthlessness.